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8600 or 5160??

post #1 of 12
12/16/04 at 11:31pm
Thread Starter 
I have been researching for a few hours now and have narrowed it down to these 2. I will be using it for some gamming but mainly for school and website design and photo editing. I like the reviews on this board I have read about the 8600. I guess the main thing I would like to know is - should I go for the 5160 with p4 3.06HT, 64mb vid card, 512mb and 60gb 7200 OR the 8600 with a 1.4 or 1.6, 512, 128mb vid and 60g 7200? I may be putiing EQII on the laptop too. Also what screen is recomended? the WXGA/WSXGA+ for the 8600 or the XGA, SXGA+ for the 5160?

Thanks in advance.
Jeff
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post #2 of 12
12/16/04 at 11:34pm
I'd say go for the 8600. The P4 in lappys is becoming obsolete. The P-M offers great performance, and if I'm not mistaken the 8600 has better graphic card options.
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post #3 of 12
12/16/04 at 11:36pm
Thread Starter 
yes the 8600 has the better card options - I was just wondering of the perfomance of the CPU - I have been out of the field for a while - how does a 3.06HT compare to a 1.6M??
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post #4 of 12
12/16/04 at 11:52pm
P-M Processors and their approximate P4 Equivalents
P-M---------------------P4
1.70 GHz-------------2.72
1.60 GHz-------------2.56
1.50 GHz-------------2.4
1.40 GHz-------------2.24
1.30 GHz-------------2.08
1.20 GHz-------------1.92
1.10 GHz-------------1.76
1 GHz-----------------1.6
900 MHz--------------1.44
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post #5 of 12
12/16/04 at 11:55pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks alot - thats what I have been looking for - I'm getting the 8600 then.
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post #6 of 12
12/16/04 at 11:58pm
General consensus is that a 1.6 GHz P-M is roughly equivelent in performance to a 2.8 GHz P4 but at 1/4 to 1/3 the power consuption.

In my opinion the minor performance edge of the 3.06HT is not worth the extra heat and much inferior battery life. I would go with the 8600. As my sig proves though I may be a little biased. My 8600 plays every game I've thrown at it (Doom III, Halflife 2, FarCry) beautifuly.

Martian
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post #7 of 12
12/17/04 at 12:04am
Thread Starter 
One more question is the 7200rpm drive really worth the extra 125 or 50 bucks?

nvrmnd - I did some searching and will get the 7200

Thanks to all! will be ordering tonight.
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post #8 of 12
12/17/04 at 2:52pm
I know this is slightly off the subject, but what does a Pentium-M 2.0ghz compare to (in terms of P4 performance)?
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post #9 of 12
12/17/04 at 3:38pm
i've heard that a 2.0dothan is comparable to a 3.4EE.
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post #10 of 12
12/17/04 at 4:26pm
there is an article that was reposted a couple days ago comparing the p4 3.4EE to a amd and the pM2.0. Here is one about gaming, there might be another one on regular performance too.

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_cont...ngaming&page=1

One thing that is overlooked about the pMs is that they dont have the hyperthreading, which does improve performance. I think the p4 3.06HT will be noticeably faster than the pM1.6, but you might be happier with the 8600 in the end.
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post #11 of 12
12/17/04 at 7:23pm
Hyperthreading isn't the silver bullet that Intel marketing would lead you to believe. In fact performance in games is slightly degraded with hyperthreading. Hyperthreading only shows slight improvments if any in most applications and is actually a detriment in a few. The only time hyperthreading will give worthwhile improvements is when the code that is running is specifically optimized for hyperthreaded processors which right now is almost nothing.

Don't base your buying decision on hyperthreading as it is mostly just hype...

Martian
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post #12 of 12
12/17/04 at 7:26pm
exactly what martian said! i used to have a toshiba satellite with a 3.0ghz p4 w/HT and I didn't notice any difference as far as the hyper-threading.....it's all a marketing scheme to make a bunch of money off the consumer's bc they are thinking they are getting a faster machine.
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